Bye bye Montana

Wow, time flew by and, after a long, long drive, I'm back in New Mexico once again. Besides the truck blocking the driveway of a client with an overdue bill that I mentioned in a previous post, there were definitely some other moments that I feel are worth mentioning. First off, my little brother has a girlfriend! Ahhh! Him being old enough for that is definitely something new to me! Yikes! I'm getting old!

Oh yeah, and the family dog, Jackson, is nice again. Who knew? He was such a brat, especially to me, at Christmastime, but he's a pretty cool dog these days. And, much to our surprise, he did really, really well when Hyside and Kona invaded his turf for 3 weeks. He played well with them, shared his toys, and showed them how river dogs are supposed to act around the water! I'm pretty sure that Jackson and Kona fell in love on the trip, though...they would have some crazy babies! They were licking each other's ears and snuggling, very twitterpated activity if I do say so myself! It made Hyside a bit jealous to see his sister playing with someone besides him, but they all made it through with no major incidents! Whew!

Hyside perched on all of our crap in the back of the Subaru. I wish that this photo showed how cramped and ridiculous it was up there!

Kona's a pretty needy little chica in the car.

Sadly, my kayaking skills are no better than they were when I left, but eh well. Hopefully there's still time. Keith and I did R2 a tiny raft down the upper stretch of the river before we had to head back. That was fun! It was definitely a challenge. The water is pretty low and we had a lot of weaving between and around rocks to do! We only had to get out and pull 3 times, which is pretty impressive considering. I guess we are professionals! I even got to wear my wetsuit, as it was absolutely freezing and rainy. That was definitely a good purchase! We, and by we, I mean Keith, also chopped down a couple of burned trees across the river from the house. My dad's been calling him "Paul Bunyan" ever since!

I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get to see more of my friends, who were also in town for various weddings. Hopefully we can catch each other next time. I did get to see on of my GU friends though! Corey, a guy that I rafted with for GU Outdoors, works in Billings as an engineer, but lives in Red Lodge, so I met up with him one night and had a few beers. It was good times! I miss some things about school and GU, so it was nice to make a connection with someone from there and to catch up on what some other people from school are doing these days!

We also got to spend some time in Red Lodge with the Mapps, which was great fun! Lauren is growing up so fast and is so smart, it's incredible! She knows so much more than an almost-2 year old should. For example, we were at Sam's drawing pictures on a little Magna Doodle and showing them to her. I drew one of a penguin, that sort of looked like a penguin, but she totally knew what it was! later, Keith wrote "thanks" on it, and when he showed it to Lauren she said, "abc's!" Most little ones would have just seen scribbles, I think. A very smart little cookie, she is! And too cute!

Well, for now anyway, that sums up my Montana trip pretty well. Can't wait to go back!